UTPB hopes to expand energy courses

Published 6:00 pm, Monday, November 24, 2008

ODESSA - With the success of an Energy Management survey course under its belt, University of Texas of the Permian Basin's School of Business plans to offer more classes under that heading.

Some 35 students registered for the course offered this fall. Faculty from across the disciplines and community leaders taught courses covering legal, human resources, geological, exploration, marketing and accounting aspects of the energy business.

Business Dean Jack Ladd, Associate Professor of Business Bill Price and Assistant Professor of Marketing Anshu Saran conducted a news conference on future plans in the President's Conference Room at the Mesa Building on Tuesday.

"We felt there was a real need to train people for managing energy businesses out here in West Texas," Ladd said. "We certainly are in the middle of the largest oil and gas area anywhere around."

"I think energy is one of the major domestic problems we face in the United States and one of the major national security problems we face. I think we should help address that, since we have so many energy resources out here," Ladd said.

UTPB started this series of energy courses last summer, Price said. "We had something of an energy program 20 years ago. The time was right to bring it back. Starting this fall, we had energy management, which is a survey of several different areas to include accounting, marketing, finance, a little bit of human resources, a little bit of history and several different aspects of the business."

"This will be followed up with several other energy courses focusing on taxation and law," and other topics, Price said.

The courses will "cycle through" about every 18 months, allowing students to earn a bachelor's of business administration with a concentration in energy.

Price said this would be marketable locally and throughout Texas.

Ladd said focus groups have been done with people in the energy industry to determine what they would like to see offered at UTPB. "We have been contacted by a number of students - or potential students - asking for this type of training. A lot of them are people that have been in the business and want to fill in some gaps. People may have degrees in other subjects and would like to get some training to help them advance in the energy area," he said.

Because of the diversity of energy businesses in the Permian Basin, it only made sense to offer the classes, Ladd said.

"We produce close to 20 percent of the nation's hydrocarbons in this area, but we're not just about oil and gas," Ladd said. "We also have a great deal of wind energy out here" and nuclear businesses in Andrews and Lea County, N.M.

"I'm told they've already sold the first 10 years of output from that. That's going to be a huge thing for energy in this country and the future. We also have the WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) site which is a storage facility in Southeastern New Mexico."

UTPB also is working on a high-temperature teaching and test reactor, which includes students having a chance to work at Los Alamos National Laboratories and starting an engineering program. Once approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is obtained, the university would start offering mechanical engineering.